Comment by throwaway_pdp09 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway_pdp09 | Hacker News Reader

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throwaway_pdp09

I really do not buy this. Everything I've heard and read contradicts at least the "we'll be ok" view. Some very long untwisted thick wires are power cables.

On what evidential basis are you making this claim?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-damage-co...

"An enormous solar storm could short out telecom satellites, radio communications, and power grids, leading to trillions of dollars in damages, experts say"

I asked an electrical engineer how well we're prepared for a large solar storm like the carrington event. She said 2 words: "we're not". What do you know that an expert working in this area doesn't?

More: https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/2...

"

A similar storm [to the carrington event] could have a catastrophic effect. According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair.

"In my view the July 2012 storm was in all respects at least as strong as the 1859 Carrington event," says Baker. "The only difference is, it missed."

"

"An enormous solar storm could short out telecom satellites, radio communications, and power grids, leading to trillions of dollars in damages, experts say"

(1) Telecom sats are no longer essentially to much of anything. The vast majority of communcations happen over fiber lines, buried or laying deep under the ocean. GPS satalites may be affected, but the current crop are hardened and expected to survive.

(2) Radio communications certainly may be disrupted during the storm. Our cellphones might be offline for a week, so too local radio stations: a temporary inconveniance rather than end-of-days.

(3) Power grids may well be distrupted. Some transformers may blow. There are a handfull in the US that are of vital importance, but they could be replaced. A worst case senerio might see some large areas without GRID power for a period of weeks. But the power plants will still be there. Some sort of diminished local service would be restored.

Who will feel the effects: The military. Militaries still rely on telecomunications via satalite. They still rely on radio for long range communications.

So experts are wrong and you're right. OK.

The reason I'm here is that there are often better informed experts here than in the cited articles. Maybe that's the case here or maybe not. Or maybe you're the best expert on the subject. I don't know, but I don't mind hearing the opposing view.

It's not like (I hope!) any government's public policy is being driven by HN comment threads.

> So experts are wrong and you're right. OK.

Yes, that position was already clear from their comment.

There are sometimes better informed experts here I suppose. But you didn't ask, you just made nonverified declarations which a little reading of the links posted here would have told you were wrong.

Didn't come across that you actually wanted to know the facts, but to assert that everything was fine, just fine.

That kind of thinking is what got us into the covid crisis we're slogging through at fantastic cost right now.

Of course that may not have been your intent but if not, what are you doing.

We don't have all that many spare transformers sitting around, waiting to be used when one fails. And they aren't all that fast to build. If we lose a number of transformers, it may be a while before some of them are replaced.

You're handwaving a lot of serious effects of a powerful solar storm. The biggest issue by far is the power grid and depending on severity it can go from "we had a small spike that was easily absorbed by the network" to "the cables melted and set fire to everything around them".

The worst case scenario might be that your power grid is down and nobody can intervene because every intervention site is on fire. Big cities would be particularly affected since they don't do well for long without power.

> Our cellphones might be offline for a week, so too local radio stations: a temporary inconvenience rather than end-of-days.

All wireless communications, all maritime communication, being affected is much more than an inconvenience. The literal end of society and civilization? No. Potentially hundreds of thousands dead, billions of dollars in damages? Yes.

Your (2) ignores the dependency of civilian air traffic on working radios, AND GPS.

Your (3) ignores the TIME it takes to manufacture AND deliver/deploy grid-level/substation grade transformers.

There aren't many spares around, and it's not like you could buy them at the Home Depot/Lowes, etc.

Actually, if you're so inclined, you could gather that from various press releases of the involved parties, which i happened to come across because of idly watching various youtube videos of said heavy transports, which linked back to those. It's often a very complicated and slow multimodal operation, by ship, rail, and street, involving large detours to avoid bridges and other obstacles.

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